Conventional navigation devices can provide a limited amount of searching based on databases resident in the device and knowledge of the device's location. For example, a user can enter “gas stations” and see gas stations that are located nearby because the device has a database of gas stations and the navigation system contains a conventional global positioning system receiver.
If the user of a device wishes to perform a search based on terms that are not stored in the database in the device, the user is unable to use the navigation device for that search. The user can use a conventional laptop computer system to perform a search, for example using a conventional cellular telephone data communications capability, but many users may not wish to pay the extra cost of doing so. Conventional navigation systems manufacturers are reluctant to build such a capability into their navigation systems, because they do not want to absorb the communication costs, and their customers would be reluctant to pay extra for such a capability.
One problem with building such a capability into a device is the fact that a user is required to either focus on the search and not the road, or pull over and perform the search.
What is needed is a system and method that can supply location-based search results from information external to a navigation device without requiring a user or a supplier to pay for all of the communication charges to support the search, and need not require the user to perform each an every search.